I ConfessNigel Poor

For many years, Poor's work has explored the various ways people make a mark and leave behind evidence of their existence. She is interested in forms of portraiture and explores this vastly mined photographic area through unconventional mean; using fingerprints and hands, objects people have thrown out, human hair, dirt, dryer lint and dead insects as indexical markers of human presence and experience. Her work explores the troubling question of how to document life and what is worthy of preservation.

Nigel Poor is a Professor of Photography at California State University, Sacramento, and a member of the Bay Area photo collective Library Candy.

Purpose: "What can I say? I am nosey, I am interested in human nature and why we do the things we do. I am curious about what we consider sin or bad actions. I wonder how similar our sense of sin and shame is."

Community: "I initially sent out two hundred requests to people I knew as well as to strangers. Many were left in public places like restaurants, bathrooms, airplane seats etc. Out of the two hundred I sent out I received back 23 responses."

I think that the greatest takeaway from this project is the glimpse at the power behind the complex ideas of sin, shame, and the act of sharing said ideas with a complete stranger; in other words, the act of confessing your deepest, darkest secret to another, perhaps for the first time.